The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-12-29
sEw1NG-woMEN's WAGES.
How They Have Sunk to Their Pres
ent Level.
From the Ne'c York Erening Post.

From, the Ne;U York Erening Post
Under the leadership of Miss Van Etten,
who has devoted several years to the problem
of how to better the condition of working
women in New York city, there is to be an
attempt at organizing women wage-workers
into something like the unions of workmen.
As yet the poorest paid of New York's
workingwomen-th those who sew upon cheap
clothing for the tailors' shops and those
who WORK upon womens Undertaking. for
the fancy stores-are the worst paid of all.
Stories have beel printed within the last
fortnight to the effect that women work for
years at time at less than soc day, sew
ing from early morning until long after
dark at night, and the statistics collected by
Miss Van Etten and some of the agents EN-
'ployed by her. show that the wages received
by more than $1,000 women who sew in their
homes, do not average more than 81 a
Week the year round for the hardest of hard
work
Several times the leaders in labor move
ments have undertaken to find a remedy for
the low wages paid to the sewing women,
and the only suggestion toward a solution
has been to take such work entirely out of
the tenements and concentrate it in large
shops. This has been done with the cigar
makers, who are now forbidden by law to
do work in their tenements. So long as
women take work TO their homes it is hard
for any urion to find out exactly what they
were paid; the women who do such work
are usually very ignorant and refuse to
spend the little time and the few pennies
which it would be necessary to give in order
to organize a working union. That much
suffering does actually exist among these
people is unquestionable, and the many sug-
geStions toward an improvement seems to
have resulted in nothing practical Almost
periodically the matter is written up in
some newspaper, and it is pointed out again
tnat the life Of family subsisting upon less
than 81 week cannot be either healthful
or pleasant one. The fact that the vast
quantities of mems clothing and women's
Undertaking are made in the living rooms
Of the very poorest people, close quarters,
where cooking, working, eating and sleep
ing go on. where children are reared ami
people die, has more than once suggested the
possibility of the spread of contagious dis
ease through clothing which comes from
these places. Work is not suspended be-
cause scarlet fever or other contagious dis
ease is among the children, the beds are
often made up of piles of clothing in diff
ferent stages of preparation for the shops
to which they 60 This is one danger of
work in the tenements which the law might
consider.
DoNGId1 employers VI ldIE0 utIUIDbIS Vi
work-people were asked as to what possible
steps sewing women might take in order to
obtain better pay. Not one of the persons
questioned denied that the condition of both
men end women, and even children, in the
tenements where cheap sewing is the occu-
patton. is miserable in the extreme. One
manufacturer of cheap clothing said:
81 often go among the tenements of Es-
sex street to see the people who do my
work, and | confess that it is heartrend-
ing sight, especially the sight of the unfor-
tunate children who seem to survive only
by miracle; to tell the truth, the life before
them, when they do grow up, is scarcely
worth living for. / can cite scores of fani-
lies in which the sewing machine huns from
6 o'clock in the morning until 8 or 10
o'clock at night; in which every member of
the family more than six yeals old works
hard; in which anything but the coarsest of
food is unknown; in which rest and recrea-
ton are equally unknown. Sundays and
week days there is the same unending
drudgery carried on at n speed which ex-
haus the workers. These people drop off
to sleep at 9 o'clock and stop work simply
because they can work no longer. The
world of children brought up in the dens is
pretty dismal one, as may be imagined,
and the only hope for them is that the laws
may send them to school, and open way
of escape
Perhaps the most effective way in which
women can be helped to helpthemselves, de-
vised so far in New York, has been through
the clubs for workingwomen, which now ex-
ist in dozen different parts of the city. In
order to help women to better wages they
must do something better than plain sew
ing, in which business the competition
makes the case hopeless. The girl who
wants to make better wages must do better
work in one of the many branches of in
dustry open to women. These clubs not
only aim to help ghls to get work by keep
ing records of Vacancies, but they afford
opportunities for improving and
instruction at nominal cost. Lessons are
given in the evenings, lectures upon all
sorts of topics are delivered, and the mem
Der who does not rise to something better
than common drudgery must be dull in
deed. But such clubs cannot affect the
wages paid for the commonest kind of sew
ing. And, inevitably, instances in which,
owing to sickness, Incompetence, or misfor-
tune, women work hard for barely sufficient
money to keep body and soul together, viii
continue to be brought to the notice of
charitable persons